All summer I’ve been waiting for a reason to bake a cherry pie with a buttery flaky crust. Not that I ever needed a reason to begin with. As August has begun I realized if I did not bake a cherry pie soon I will have missed out on one of summer’s greatest joys. It’s not too late for you to bake one too! I present to you the Best of Summer Cherry Pie. Enjoy!
Best of Summer Cherry Pie
Pie Filling Ingredients:
5 cups of pitted cherries
2 tsp. of lemon zest
3 Tbl. of lemon juice if using dark sweet cherries, or 1 Tbl. for sour tart red cherries
1 cup of sugar if using dark sweet cherries such as Bing or 1 1/2 cup of sugar if using red tart sour cherries.
1/4 cup of corn starch
Pie Crust
Ingredients:
3 cups (12 oz) of AP flour
1 stick of cold butter (8 Tbl.) cubed
8 Tbl. (1/2 cup) shortening
2 tsp. white vinegar
1/4 tsp. of salt
2 Tbl. of sugar
*up to 4 tablespoons of cold water if needed
Directions for the filling:
In a small bowl mix sugar and corn starch together with your fingers and set aside.
Place the pitted cherries in a large bowl and add lemon zest and juice. Add sugar/corn starch mixture to the cherries and mix everything with your hands. Set aside.
Directions for pie crust:
Pre-heat oven to 375 degress.
Using a food processor, pulsate butter, shortening, sugar, salt, and flour until the mixture resembles coarse corn meal. If you don’t have a food processor you can use a fork or your fingers. Add vinegar to the mixture and 1 Tbl. of cold water at a time until you get a workable dough. What is a workable dough? When the dough has enough elasticity that you can roll it out on a floured surface without it crumbling on you. You want to be careful only to add 1 Tbl. at a time because you also don’t want to have it too wet. You just want to add enough water to your dough so it is workable.
Instead of rolling the dough out, I use a different method.. the cheater’s method. I grab a handful of dough and pat it into my pie plate (which has been coated with non-stick spray). As you pat the dough down, make sure you do it evenly. You want the crust to be approx. 1/8″ high. Once your pie plate is evenly coated with pie crust dough, roll the remaining dough out on a floured surface to 1/8″ in height and as wide as the pie plate is. Cut the dough in 8-1″ strips.
Carefully pour the cherry filling into the prepared pie plate. To make a lattice pie crust, you can see this post from Elise of Simply Recipes. She breaks it down beautifully with step by step photos.
Crimp the edges of your pie using a fork or your fingers. Brush the lattice with water or milk and sprinkle with 2 tablespoons of sugar. Cover the edges of the pie crust with foil strips and bake for 1 hour. Allow the pie to cool for at least 30 minutes before serving. Enjoy!
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{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Yumm!! Now, I am compelled to go make a few cherry pies! Great photos, Alice.
Great use of cherries…your pie looks great!
Your pie looks amazing! I have always hated cherry pie, but then I realized I have never had a real cherry pie. I love fresh cherries so why wouldn’t I love a real cherry pie? I need to try and make one. Memories of the old canned cherry pie filling inside a frozen pie crust needs to be erased and filled with a yummy pie like yours:)
Your pie looks absolutely perfect! What beautiful cherries, too. Your photos look great!
I love cherry pie! I would love a slice!
It been a while since I’ve had myself a good slice of pie. This looks really good. Hopefully when I go to the farmer’s market this soming week there will be some cherries left.
That looks really good. I have always been afraid to make my own pie crust. Perhaps this is why I have not adventured into making a cherry pie. With it broken down the way you have in this recipe, I think it should be very simple. Thank you, and I will definately give your recipe a try!!!
That’s a gorgeous pie! It wasn’t a very good cherry year here in East Tennessee so I’m still hoarding a couple of bags of sour cherries I picked the spring before.
It’s beautiful! Your crust looks PERFECT!!!
I’ve wanted to learn how to make this pie for some time now. Thanks for the step by step!
Beautiful pie!!! Nothing screams summer like a fresh fruit pie! especially cherry!!
Looks very good and I’m very proud of your ideas. mom
YUM! I just got a huge bowl of cherries and might have to try this.
Beautiful, just beautiful! Your photos are stunning, especially with the blue background you used. I’m a little bashful about how messy my lattice came out compared to yours, I must try Elise’s method next time!
Ah, I, too, just made my own cherry pie just like this. Sadly, as delicious as it was, the cherry juice didn’t quite set. But it was scrumptious and cherryful anyway, which was the point! Yours looks beautiful and perfect!
I’ve never made a pie before but your instructions and photography make me want to give this one a shot! Excellent job!
Gorgeous! I still have to make a pie before summer officially ends. This looks like a fantastic recipe.
Alice, you’re killing me! My absolute favorite pie in the entire world is cherry pie…..I have my family’s favorite holiday cherry pie somewhere in November on my blog….but it doesn’t use fresh cherries because they aren’t available for Easter, Thanksgiving, or Christmas. Just yesterday I posted a cherry crumble to make sure, like you, that I did not miss the fresh cherry season. I think that your pie tops it! I will make this pie immediately!
I love your photos too, you must be a professional!
recently found out my 3 year old is alergic to cinnamin, i always make an apple pie for thanksgiving, so this year i decided i will make apple and cherry. Hopefully it is not to late in the year to find good cherries.
We loved this recipe for our first cherry pie!!! My son loved helping and it was delicious!! We had house guests and the pie was gone in less than 12 hours. Thank goodness I bought 2 pie crusts so I can make another one this week! (still need to try that from scratch!!)
I found a lot of cherry pie recipes with nuts–we don’t do nuts, so this was great for us! Thanks!
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